Centene, Forest each beat earnings views, but diverge in market woods

By Russ Britt

Forest Laboratories diverged in the woods of the stock market from Centene Corp. Tuesday, even though both soundly beat analyst forecasts for quarterly earnings.

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Forest Laboratories Inc.
/quotes/zigman/226825/quotes/nls/frxFRX posted better-than-expected first-quarter earnings but shares slipped several percentage points in the early going and were down nearly 1% in recent action.

Investors paid more attention to the fact the drug maker’s earnings were down year-over-year, as opposed to its ability to exceed expectations. The company said net income was $23.3 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with $55.3 million, or 21 cents a share, from a year ago. Net revenue, however, was up slightly to $832.9 million against last year’s $821.1 million.

Adjusted earnings were 28 cents a share, 20 cents ahead of the forecast from analysts polled by FactSet. Investors also may have gotten skittish over the company’s lower-than-expected spending on research and development.

Centene said net income for the period was $39.5 million, or 70 cents a share, a swing from last year’s loss of $35 million, or 68 cents a share. Revenue was $2.73 billion against last year’s $2.11 billion.

Centene’s adjusted earnings were 77 cents a share, well ahead of the FactSet estimate of 65 cents. The FactSet analyst poll also predicted sales of $2.64 billion.

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